Our Sister The Nephilim
by TypewriterMonkey11
Summary: What if the Winchesters had a sister? Leila was four years old, the same age as Dean, when she found herself at the doorstep of a motel. Coughing up blood, and suffering from mild hypothermia, she is quickly welcomed into the Winchester family. When the time comes to finally learn about her past, will she be ready?
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys! So, my last sister fic didn't turn out very well, but I'm gonna try again with a different person as their sister.**

**Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, and I'm like at least 5% sure I'm not him.**

* * *

_November 20th, 1983_

John Winchester was tired. No, that was an understatement, he was exhausted. He had just finished his first salt and burn case while Dean watched over Sammy, which some small part of him knew that it was wrong to make a four year old watch over a baby, but he just wanted to find the thing that killed Mary, and kill every damn monster in between so that no family would be torn apart like his.

Dean was waiting at the door when John finally trudged back to the motel room. He said nothing, but he made John sit down and take his shoes off. Dean never spoke anymore, and it broke John's heart, but what could he do?

John was tucking Dean into bed when there was a faint knock at the door, and a muffled cough. He walked over and carefully opened the door a few inches to glance around. At first he saw nothing, but another cough made him look down and there he saw a little girl, about Dean's age and shivering violently. Her shirt was much too long and covered her knees, her hair was matted and grimy, and she had what looked like caked blood on her face.

"Hey kid, whatcha doin' here?" John asked, a little gruff from not having spoken all day.

"A-Are you J-John Wi-Winchest-ter?" She stuttered, coughing violently into her hand. When she pulled it away there was a small pool of blood. She looked down at it like it was somebody else's and she didn't quite believe it was real.

"Yeah, hey come on in, we'll get you cleaned up. Where are your parents?" He mumbled, opening the door further and stepping aside.

"I-I dunno, I th-think Heaven." She shrugged, stepping through the doorway. She coughed and wheezed a few times before seeming to collect herself.

"Dean. I need you to get the first aid kit, kid, what's your name?" John demanded, a little more quietly than if he were only talking to Dean as the small girl seemed very shaken.

"'m Meridan Leila Jackson. I like my second name bestest." She said quietly, wiping her face with her jacket sleeve. Dean ran up with the box and a damp towel, leading Leila to a chair before wiping her face carefully. Sam chose exactly that moment to wake up and start crying, which made Leila jump violently.

"Sorry Leila, Sammy needs something. Daddy can you go help Sammy? I wanna help Leila." Dean pleaded quietly, shocking John back into the present.

"Y-Yeah, thanks Dean." John blinked.

"Hi Dean." Leila whispered, staring straight into Dean's face unblinkingly.

"Hi." Dean mumbled, continuing to clean her of the blood. Once that was done, Dean ran to his bag and pulled out a clean shirt and pants and handed them to her.

"Th-thank you Dean." She smiled. Dean pointed to the bathroom as he started to dig around in the kit for a thermometer.

* * *

Four hours and a hospital trip later they were all back in the motel room, and Leila was well on her way to becoming a Winchester as Bobby was working on forging some paperwork.

"So tell me Leila, how did you know how to find me?" John finally asked.

"The Angels told me." She said Matter-Of-Factly.

"Angels, huh?" John scoffed. He didn't believe in Angels, if they existed then Mary wouldn't have roasted on the ceiling and his boys would still have a mother. Leila would have parents still too, for that matter, and Bobby's wife wouldn't have been possessed.

"Mhm, they said you were gonna be a great monster hunter, an Sam an Dean are super duper important." She nodded, pulling Dean's sneakers off her tiny feet.

"Alright then, how about you get some sleep okay? We're going to Uncle Bobby's in the morning and it's a long drive." John reminded her.

"Ok, goodnight Mr. Winchester." She yawned, turning over and pulling the thin blanket over her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey I'm back! Sorry this update took so long, it was on my phone and I had to get it onto my computer.**

* * *

After I showed up on John Winchester's doorstep with no memory of my parents other than a mans voice telling me he was going back to his family and I had to find the Winchesters, I was a fairly normal kid. I went to school with Dean, took care of Sammy, and participated in hunts with John and Dean sometimes. We didn't even think that I could be any different than my brothers until my thirteenth birthday. That day made it clear that I was the most far from normal that anyone could get.

"Hey Lei, get up. Dad wants us to be ready for a hunt in ten minutes." Dean insisted, flicking my ear.

"Urgh. Fine." I groaned. I held my watch up to my face and squinted at the date on the display. It was January 24th! Me and Dean were officially thirteen years old.

"Happy birthday guys!" Sammy squeaked from where he was sitting with a giant book.

"Thanks man!" I grinned, hugging him tightly before giving him a noogie.

"Hey I got you something, be right back it's in the car." Dean announced from the door.

I scrambled to pull my shoes and jacket back on while simultaneously looking under my pillow for Dean's present. I knew it was there somewhere.

"Come on Sammy, Lei. We need to get moving!" John called from the doorway.

"We're coming!" Sammy replied tiredly. I knew how much he hated moving day. It was always tough on him since he made real friends at school, whereas Dean and I only talked to each other and threatened anyone who was rude to any of us.

I finally found the silver ring on a chain and stuffed it into the pocket of my cargo jacket before ushering Sammy out the door. Hopefully this time dad would drop Sammy at uncle Bobby's or Pastor Jim's place instead of leaving him at a motel for hours or even days. For Christ's sake, he was only eight years old. Or eight and three-fourths if you asked him.

We slid into the backseat of the impala, which was starting to get a little cramped with all three of us in there, but John had decided that letting Dean or me sit in the front seat would cause accusations of favouritism, so there we remained for the time being.

"Here," I said, handing Dean the necklace. "It was Mary's, and it was going to be too big for your hands right now so I bought a chain for it."

"Thanks Lei, means a lot. Here, I saw this at a garage sale and thought of you." Dean grinned, holding out a St. Gabriel pendant on a leather string.

"You dork." I chuckled, pulling the thing over my head. It rested right on the middle of my chest, perfect for my tastes. The pendant itself was the size of my thumb pad, almost like it had been made specifically so I could rub it between my thumb and forefinger.

"What can I say, he was always your favourite angel." Dean shrugged. I gave him a sideways look. My religious practices had been in private, once I was sure Dean and Sam were asleep and only if John wasn't there. I was fairly sure that I had never mentioned my belief in Angels to anyone, besides John when I was four, but I'm not sure that counted.

"Deans a snooper. He went through your stuff when you went for burgers with uncle Bobby." Sam said matter-of-factly.

"Am not!" Dean protested immediately. He flushed dark red and I knew he was caught. "I was just looking for your bible. I knew you kept it in the bottom and I wanted to see if you bookmarked or highlighted anything, or if you needed a new one. I saw you reading and praying once when we were supposed to be asleep."

"Oh." I said simply as John climbed into the drivers seat.

"Alright. Sammy, we're dropping you off at Bobby's and then we're going to go and finish off this ghost problem he had in his town." He announced.

"But daaad..." Sammy whined.

"No 'but's Samuel." John snapped as he started the car. Sam pouted angrily and brooded out the window. He hated when anybody called him that. I could sympathise, as I refused to be called anything other than 'Lei' or 'Leila' even though that was my middle name. If someone was to either look me up in official records, they would have to search for one 'Mariden Leila Winchester'. Or if you wanted my birth records, 'Mariden Leila Jackson'.

The rest of the fairly short car ride was spent in silence, as Dean had insisted upon blaring AC/DC, Sammy was still pouting, and I was just too absorbed in my own thoughts to say anything. I'd been having nightmares as of late, and they'd wake me in the middle of the night without a chance of going back to sleep again. Most of them featured a disappointed John Winchester telling me that I was useless and just a weight dragging down the family. Sometimes Dean or Sammy made an appearance and they usually told me I was a freak, that I should never have been born, things like that. Except, it wasn't quite them, the ones in my nightmares all had pitch black eyes, even the whites were blacked out. I'd thought about telling John, but he'd just tell me to nut up and stop being a baby. They were just dreams after all.

"Hey guys." Bobby waved from a little more up the driveway. I jolted out of my thoughts and nearly startled myself out of the now open door.

"Hey Bobby." John greeted simply.

"You okay there Lei?" Bobby chuckled as I scrambled to my feet.

"M'fine." I croaked.

"Sure you are. Well, have fun saltin' and burnin' Mack Henderson's bones." He smirked, leading a hyperactive Sammy back into his house.

"Bye Bobby!" Dean called out of the window while I sat back into the car.

I started getting my pre-hunt jitters when we were just pulling into the graveyard, and night had fallen.

"Ready?" I asked Dean as I threw him a shovel.

"Are you ready? You look a little nervous there?" Dean teased. I punched him lightly on the shoulder, so he feigned injury by clutching his shoulder and doubling over.

"Come on you two. I'll keep watch while you dig." John ordered, brushing past us.

It took a little longer than I anticipated to find the grave, but when we did I was so anxious to dig that I didn't even wait for Dean to call dibs on first shovelful before I began to dig as quickly as possible.

"Not fair!" Dean complained. I was already almost a foot in by the time he started to dig. It was slow going, even with two people, and I was going to have blisters over my calluses in the morning, but it was enjoyable. I had to say that ghosts were my favourite thing to hunt just because we got to dig.

When we were maybe two shovels away from the casket, Mack decided to show his, admittedly quite handsome, face. Dad was at him in an instant, swinging a tire iron through him, but Mack was too quick and disappeared before the iron made contact. Dean continued to shovel as I looked around nervously. John had said on the way here that Mack's M. O. was young girls who were wearing skirts or shorts above their ankle, which Mack had died when anything higher than that was indecent, but still. I had stupidly worn short shorts since it was boiling out and I was going to overheat if I didn't, so I was an easy target.

"Move!" John yelled as I hopped out of the grave. I spun around to see none other than Mack reaching for my throat. I screamed as I was flung against a very solid headstone and heard a very bad crunching sound from my arm, which I had let take the brunt of the impact.

"Hey Mack!" Dean shouted while he dropped a match into the grave. "Hasta lavista you son of a-"

"Dean! Language!" John chastised.

I let out a whimper of pain as I rolled over off of my arm, which was drowned out by the screams of the ghost as he burst into flame, and then was gone.

"Lei, where'd he throw you?" Dean called.

"Here." I groaned, waving my foot in the air.

"Woah! Dad we need to fix her arm up, I think it's broken. You know, just a hunch. I may be wrong." Dean joked, trying to lighten my mood. I offered him a weak smile, but it must have been more of a grimace because his grin dropped immediately into a look of great concern.

"Jesus, yeah. Let's get her to Bobby's." John sighed when he saw my bent arm. The bone was practically folded at a 120 degree angle and I had to look away or else I felt like throwing up everywhere. It may have been sticking out of the skin too, as I felt hot liquid running down my arm.

I let out a cry of anguish and when I reopened my eyes, we were in Bobby's study and Sammy was gaping at us with his mouth open.

"You should close your mouth Sammy, you'll... catch flies..." I gasped.

"Bobby! Dad, Dean, and Lei are back!" Sammy shrieked.

"I didn't hear them drive up!" Came Bobby's reply from a room over.

"They didn't! They kinda just appeared in the living room!" Sammy chuckled.

John handed me to Dean with no warning, and he nearly collapsed from my potato sack-like weight. If I was able to concentrate I would've probably heard Bobby and John talking, or Sammy asking questions and Dean's quiet answers, but all I could do was whimper and squeeze my eyes as tightly shut as possible.

"Okay champ, I'm gonna fix your arm, but it's going to hurt a lot, all right?" Bobby said quietly. I faintly felt his hand on my shoulder, and a thought of 'what's going on?' floated through my head, but I just nodded and braced myself. There was a loud snap as my arm popped back into place and I might have screamed, I'm not entirely sure, but half the lights in the house blew out and hail started slapping at the windows.

"What the Hell is going on?" Dean demanded.

"I don't know Dean, I'll be right back with some salt, you wait here." John ordered.

"Yes sir." Dean grumbled.

"It's hailing." I said softly.

"Yep." Sammy replied, staring into my face from an unreasonably short distance.

"I-I did that, didn't I?" I mumbled.

"Mhm." Sammy nodded.

"I'm some kind of monster, aren't I?" I asked, turning to face Dean.

"No, no. You'll be okay, we'll be okay." Dean sighed unconvincingly.

"John and Bobby are going to kill me, aren't they?" I asked, this time it wasn't really a question. We all knew the answer. John was going to try to interrogate me, get frustrated when I didn't know the answers, and then if they couldn't find out what I was, they would try to kill me.

"Jesus Lei, no one's going to kill you. We're going to figure this out, and we'll go back to normal." Dean insisted.

"They're going to kill me when I can't tell them what I am. I know it." I said. I felt oddly disconnected at that point. I suppose that's what they called it when you were resigned to your fate.

"Lei, we're not going to kill you. We're going to figure out what you are, and go from there." Bobby said, putting a comforting hand on my knee.

"Al-Alright." I nodded, wiping at my face. Dammit, I was a Winchester, and Winchesters didn't cry, no matter what happened.

* * *

After Bobby and John had a hushed, but obviously heated conversation in the kitchen, we all went to sleep. John got the guest bedroom, Sammy the couch, and Dean and I got the floor. It was the same sleeping arrangements as always.

I woke up sometime around four in the morning from a nightmare where John killed me for being a 'mutant freak of a monster' and couldn't fall asleep again so I started looking through Bobby's extensive library for books that might have what I was in them. Once I'd pulled the appropriate books off the shelf, there was only maybe three or four, so I set a few biblical books on top just for the Hell of it.

"How long've you been up kiddo?" Bobby asked when he finally got up and started a pot of coffee around eight.

"Four hours I think? Yeah, four." I shrugged, taking a sip of my now lukewarm coffee I'd started an hour ago.

"How many cups of caffeine?" He groaned. I was jittering in my seat, but it was worth it since I could actually stay awake.

"Um, ten?" I shrank in my seat a bit, was coffee not allowed anymore? What if I'd done something wrong? John would be all over my ass about it.

"It's alright kid, just lay off the coffee a bit." Bobby sighed. Dean started to stir ten minutes later and I snuck over to him and blew cold air into his ear.

"AUGH! Jesus Christ Lei!" Dean shrieked, jumping backwards a few feet.

"Whazz goin' on?" Sammy yawned.

"Lei's being a jerkface, that's what." Dean glowered.

"Aw calm down Dean, I apologize." I joked.

"Sure you do." He huffed. After a cup of coffee for Dean and a candy bar for Sammy, we were all hitting the books. No one found anything, until Dean and Bobby finally wracked up the nerve to crack open some biblical texts, and happened across some Angel lore.

"Hey, look at this." Dean grinned, pointing to a chapter on Nephilim.

"Human-Angel babies yeah, what's your point?" I snapped. Maybe all that coffee was a bad idea, but I still had my life on the line, so I was allowed to be a little pissed.

"Doesn't this one look a bit like you?" He joked, pointing at a beautifully done drawing of a three or four year old.

"Lemme see." Bobby said, pulling the book away from Dean.

"This isn't the time for jokes Dean!" I shouted. "Plus, Angels probably aren't real anyways."

"What?" Dean's face fell. "But, you love reading this stuff! You pray like every night!"

"Not for a long time," I mumbled. "Have you seen the stuff we hunt Dean? I'm pretty damn sure they wouldn't be here if there were Angels."

"Stop your mopin' and look at this," Bobby snapped. "The book says a Nephilim will possess some of the same powers an Angel would, teleportation, weather manipulation, speaking Enochian, that's Angel language, and minor healing."

"One sec, Lei, what happened to your arm being broken?" Sammy asked, turning to face me.

"Oh my God." I gasped. It hadn't even occurred to me to look at it, but he was right, it was completely healed.

"Looks like you're a Nephilim Leila, congrats." John said from the doorway. He must've been listening in.

"Yeah, well, now we gotta figure out who her daddy is. Says here that we can summon him." Bobby pointed to a passage in the book and my hand jumped to my new medallion.

"How do we do that?" I asked. I was excited and nervous to meet my dad, my real dad. I knew I'd met him before, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what he looked like.

"Book says we can't do that until you've reached full maturity. Which they claim is uh. Twenty-Seven." Dean groaned.

"Mother f-" I swore.

"Leila! Language." John warned.

"Yeah, yeah." I grumbled.

It was going to be a long fourteen years.


	3. Chapter 3

**Alright guys, here you go. The next two or three chapters should be spaced over season 1 (I may go back and upload a Bad Boys flashbacks chapter and then notify y'all), and then we get to season 2, ect. I'll start doing more in-depth stuff in season 4-ish. If you want to read ahead a bit, and see some of her more AU fringe-canon adventures, head over to my roleplay blog jaggedwings on tumblr**

**This chapter has mentions of abuse, so skip to 2005 onwards if you don't want to read that.**

**Thanks to anna3311234 for your review!**

**Edit: I totally forgot to add one of the most important characters in here!**

* * *

_August,__2001_

The door slammed, and dust settled around it. I blinked. Sam couldn't be gone, could he? No, not like that, not forever. There had been an argument with John, Sam had announced he got into Stanford with a full ride, and he had reacted badly saying things like 'Are you really going to choose school over your family?'. It was classic John. The John I grew up being terrified of. The John who had raised Dean and me as soldiers. The John who had changed so much since he took me in. He wasn't even the same John I knew the day after my thirteenth birthday all those years ago, who was angry, but not this bitter. He had changed so much in the span of nine years, that if he didn't already know I was a Nephilim and that I had my powers under control, I would have feared for my life.

"Stay there. Both of you." He barked. Dean froze on his way to the door, probably wanting to try to talk to Sam.

"Yes sir." We chorused.

"Line up." He ordered.

We scrambled to stand next to each other, looking straight ahead and not daring to move a muscle. We knew what was coming, and I could already hear the clinking of whiskey bottles.

* * *

_A few hours later..._

"Are you okay?" Dean whispered. We were crouched in our room in the house we were squatting at, and the warm August air was seeping through the broken window.

"I-I-I'll be f-fine." I choked. I mentally cursed myself for stuttering. It was a form of weakness I had no control over. I'd had a bad stutter until school speech therapists finally helped me break it when I was ten, and I slipped back into it whenever I was scared or upset. I didn't cry, not since I was five, but I stuttered, and that was just as bad to the Winchesters.

"Hm." He grunted. After a bad run-in with John we would always assess each other's injuries, but this time, we didn't need to. John had forced us to take turns and watch the other being beaten, so we knew exactly what had happened to the other. I would be fine after a few minutes, and then I would heal Dean, but I don't think it really mattered either way. We still remembered, and we still took everything so that Sammy wouldn't have to. When I was around fifteen or so, John was the angriest I had ever seen him, and that year was the year we had the most 'run-ins'. That year I used my healing so often, that it wouldn't work sometimes, and one of us would be stuck with a huge bruise that we would have to explain to teachers and such.

* * *

_November 5th 2005_

We attended Jessica's funeral that day. It was long, and there were a lot of people crying, Sam included. I don't think I'd ever seen Sam as upset as he was after Jess burned. It was heartbreaking. And even though I didn't know the girl very well (we'd met a few times for coffee so I could keep tabs on my baby brother, which had surprised Sam when he found out), I said a few words. Mostly how I knew that she meant the world to my brother, and that I was hoping they would end up married, maybe have a few rugrats of their own, because they deserved to be a happy, normal family. Jess' mom burst out in another fit of tears when I broke the news that Sam had been getting up the nerve to propose, something he had told me during the hunt. He'd actually come to me for advice, and I'd laughed at him for a while, until I realized he was serious. I guess he didn't realize I was the last person in the universe to go to for romantic advice.

"I'm really sorry Kelly, I know how hard it is to loose family," I told Jess' very teary little sister. She was fourteen, and from what I could tell, loved her sister to death. "Can I tell you something? I lost my parents when I was really little, and I didn't even get to know them."

"Isn't that easier though?" She asked through her sobs.

"Not really, I think it might even be harder. See, I never got to learn what their favourite Ice cream flavour was, or if they really loved each other or anything," I said. "You got that chance, and you have a lot of great memories of your sister that you can think about. Maybe even one day that's all you'll remember, is the good things." I gave her a weak smile, and a pat on the head before heading back to the Impala where Dean and Sam were waiting.

"She really took a shine to you, huh?" Dean nodded his head towards Kelly.

"What can I say, I can relate to the whole dead family member thing," I deadpanned. "Let's go."

"Yeah, I don't want to be here anymore." Sam agreed. We got into the car where my daughter Reese was already waiting. She was eight years old, and looked like a perfect balance between her father and me.

"You alright Reese?" I asked softly. She'd liked Jess a lot, and even though she knew death came with the job, she kept working.

"I'm fine mom." She mumbled.

* * *

_December 17th, 2005_

Mary was creepy as Hell. Sam was standing in front of the mirror, he claimed that she would come after him, but I didn't see why. He said it had to do with Jess' death, and my mind was reeling, trying to figure out what that meant. Best to stay in the present though. Especially since Sam's eyes were starting to bleed.

"Duck!" Dean yelled. He threw his crowbar and the mirror smashed, and Sam collapsed to the floor. We both helped him to his feet and were about to leave when I heard a woman's voice talking to Dean.

"You killed all those people-" She was saying. Dean didn't let her continue, instead holding up a mirror, where her reflection kindly informed her that she killed a lot of people herself, and then Dean smashed it and she disappeared. Hopefully forever.

"That's gotta be, what, seven hundred years bad luck?" Dean joked. I punched him lightly on the arm, and Sam just scoffed and shook his head, though he was smiling.

The next day, we were driving out of town and I could have sworn I saw Jessica in a white dress as we drove by a street corner, and from how Sam was staring out his window, he had too.

* * *

_January 15th, 2006_

It was just over a week until Dean and my birthday. Dean was researching jobs, Sam was drawing something on the motel room notepad, and I was throwing knives at a corkboard I'd hung up where a picture was supposed to be.

"Wait a second, I know this!" Sam exclaimed. He jumped from the bed and dug through one of the bags until he pulled out a picture. It was of John, Mary, Dean, and baby Sam. Just a few days before the fire. It was the only place I ever saw John looking truly happy, or Dean for that matter. "Guys, I know where we have to go next."

"Where?" Dean asked.

"Back home, back to Kansas." Sam replied, like it was completely obvious.

"Okay, random. Where'd that come from?" I chuckled, throwing a knife and getting my fourth bulls-eye in a row. Bulls-eye might've meant right on the forehead of a drawing of God I'd done a few weeks back. It was pretty good if I did say so myself. Plus it looked like a drawing of some random, vaguely homeless dude with a lot of scruff and wearing a bathrobe. I have no clue where I got the impression God was a guy in his late twenties without a job, but I did.

"Okay, look, this is gonna sound crazy but….the people who live in our old house –- I think they might be in danger."

"Why would you think that?" I made a face at Dean like 'can you believe this?'.

"Uh…it's just, um….look, just trust me on this, okay?" He mumbled.

"Why would we trust you on this exactly?" Dean asked.

"Don't call me crazy or anything okay? But I've been having these nightmares." Sam admitted.

"And?"

"And sometimes... They come true." I kind of just stared at Sam for a few moments. Had he been having them too? He couldn't be having the same ones as me though, since he wasn't a Nephilim, and mine were more about a few years or months into the future, and all about my family. Never anything else, and especially not about people we didn't know.

"Excuse me?" Dean blinked.

"Look, before Jess died, I had nightmares about it." Sam explained.

"Yeah, people have nightmares about the people they love dying." Dean shrugged.

"But it was exactly how it happened, the fire and everything." Sam insisted.

* * *

_January 24th, 2006_

One day before our birthday, and Sam had been ghost possessed and almost shot Dean. Not the best birthday present ever. I had been locked in a grimy room for almost two hours by the time they finally got me out. God damn Doc Ellicot.

"Happy birthday guys." Sam grinned as he held up two brown paper packages.

"Thanks Sammy." I smiled softly. I was still tired from last night and my voice was scratchy from screaming myself hoarse.

"Yeah, thanks man." Dean chorused. We ripped the paper open at the same time.

"Awesome!" I said. My gift was a new machete, just in time too as my old one was falling off the handle, and a leather journal.

"Sweet!" Dean chuckled. He pulled out a bottle of car oil and a cassette of Led Zeppelin's 'In Through The Out Door' which our copy of had pretty much fallen apart from use.

It was an awesome day, and I completely forgot about finding who my dad was. Apparently so did everyone else. Even Bobby when we went to visit him and Reese, who lived with him all school year so she could go to one school, rather than bouncing around like my brothers and I.

* * *

_March 28th, 2006_

"Hey guys." John smiled sadly.

"Dad." Dean choked out.

"John." I nodded. I was in full soldier mode already. The last time we'd spoken hadn't ended up well, and I was expecting to be chewed out for it.

"Listen, we can't stay together, alright? That thing was after me, and I'd just be putting you in danger if you were with me." John said.

"No, no dad you can't just leave us!" Dean protested.

"He's right Dean, we'd just be in danger. They knew how to lure dad in." Sam admitted reluctantly.

I gaped at my baby brother. He had been downright obsessive about finding John, for months, and yet he was letting him go, just like that.

* * *

_June 4th, 2006_

We had the colt, John was posessed, Meg was dead, or at least the meatsuit was, Dean and I were badly injured, and Sam wouldn't shoot.

"Come on Sam! It's not really him!" I coughed. There was an awful amount of blood pooling out onto the floor, and I didn't want to think about it, but my head kept lolling forwards.

"But if I kill the demon, I kill him too." Sam mumbled. After a moment, he shot John in the leg and black smoke poured out of his mouth.

Driving. We were driving now. Dean and I were in the back, still bleeding. Were we going to the hospital? I couldn't think straight. I needed water. Sam and John were arguing in the front seat. I couldn't make out anything.

"No sir, not before family." Sam said. A truck crashed into us and I was out cold.


	4. Chapter 4

**Alright, it's been a hectic month and thank you all for sticking through these updates with me!**

**Still don't own SPN or the characters, but oh do I wish.**

**I would update on a regular basis but alas I am just a simple giraffe. **

**I'm gonna start using episode titles rather than dates cos it's easier.**

* * *

_In My Time of Dying (2.1)_

I woke up with a sharp pain in my abdomen, and immediately jumped to my feet to try to get to the bathroom, which was a huge mistake. I wound up falling off my hospital bed and jostling my, apparently broken, arm.

"Help." I moaned weakly. Luckily for me, Sam had heard the crash and burst into my room.

"Leila! You're awake!" He beamed, helping me get back into bed.

"Yeah, Hallelujah and all that," I grumbled. "Why does everything hurt so bad? Where's Dean? Where's John?"

Sam's smile fell.

"Dean's still out Lei, he won't wake up. We just had a scare a coupla minutes ago when his heart stopped, but the docs got him back up. Lei, I coulda sworn I felt him in there, like, behind me or somethin', just out of eye-shot." Sam shook his head.

"Lei! You're better off than me. Thank God you're alright." I heard Dean say from just in front of Sam. He flickered into being there, like a TV signal, or a ghost.

"I'm gonna bet you didn't hear or see that, did you Sam." I said, not taking my eyes off of where Dean had been just seconds before.

"What're you talking about?" Sam asked, obviously confused.

"I saw Dean, right there," I pointed to the spot. "Just for a second, like a ghost. Heard 'im too."

"Do you think it's a Nephilim thing?" Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe." I mumbled.

"Look, I'm gonna go talk to Dad, let him know what happened." Sam jerked his thumb towards the hall.

"Yeah, yeah. Have fun with Mr. Grumpy-pants." I half-joked.

"Lei, you can hear me?" Dean asked, his voice echoing a tiny bit as he came into view.

"Yeah De, I can see you too, when you're talking." I smiled softly, I was glad I could talk to him, even if he wasn't awake, but I was worried, did it mean he was dying? I knew ghosts were what happened when you escaped your reaper, so did that mean that Dean was becoming a ghost?

"Look, there's this spirit, it's kinda green and classic ghost-y with the tattered clothes and everything, it came after me when my heart stopped. I grabbed it to get it off me and my heart started back up. Any clue what it is?" He asked. "And uh, there's this girl Tessa too, she's wanderin' around like me."

"Dean," I frowned. "I think the green thing is a Reaper. You gotta hold out while we find something okay? But if we can't..." My voice died in my throat. I didn't want to think about if we couldn't find a way to bring him back.

"I know." He said firmly.

There was a moment of silence, and then I felt him punch me lightly on my good arm.

"Hey, cheer up kiddo, I'll be fine. I always am, right?" He grinned.

"Yeah, you are." I agreed.

"So, do you wanna meet Tessa? She'd probably be relieved to meet someone else who can see her." He gave me a cheesy hopeful grin like a little kid hoping to show someone his secret hiding place.

"Why not." I shrugged.

Twenty minutes later, Sam and I were sitting on the floor of Dean's room with a Ouija board, which I had called useless as I could talk to Dean myself, but Sam had said something about wanting to talk to Dean himself. I had one hand on the planchette as the other was in a sling, and Dean was moving it around. Mostly insulting Sam good-naturedly for using such a dumb thing to communicate. His exact words before we started had been "God, I feel like I'm at a freakin' slumber party."

"There's gotta be a way." Sam was muttering.

"Sam, it's okay we'll figure this out." I said.

"Dad'll know what to do." He insisted, leaving to go find John.

I sat helplessly on the hospital room floor across from my twin brother and sighed. I could see Dean all the time now, and he'd stopped flickering a few minutes ago. It was almost like he was really there.

"Dean, if you don't- If we can't-"

"Lei, we're going to find a way. I promise." He cut me off.

"But if we can't," I insisted. "I want you to know that when I get up to the big sky place with you, I'm gonna kick your ass. And then maybe I'll hug you."

"What the Hell did I do to deserve an ass-kicking?" Dean complained.

"You're a huge jerk for scaring us like this." I said simply.

"Oh, so Yellow-Eyes nearly kills the both of us and it's my fault," He snorted. "Typical."

* * *

Dean woke up a few hours later.

Sam and I were sitting next to him when he started coughing on his tubes.

"Help! I need help in here!" Sam yelled.

It was morning before we heard anything back. They ran tests all night.

"I can't explain it. The edema's vanished, the internal contusions are healed, your vitals are good..." The doctor trailed off. "You've got some kind of Angel watching over you kid."

It took all I had not to burst out laughing right then and there.

"Thanks doc," Dean grinned, catching my eye and stifling a few chuckles of his own. "So you said there was a Reaper after me?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded.

"How'd I ditch it?" Dean frowned.

"Beats me," I shrugged. Dean looked a little worried at that. I was supposed to be this walking encyclopedia of the creepy and the crawly, and he never liked it when I was wrong or didn't know something. "So you really don't remember anything?"

"No," He shook his head. "Except, there's this pit in my stomach, like something's not quite right."

There was a knock on the door and I jumped in my seat a little, straightening automatically when I saw it was John.

"How you feelin' dude?" He asked, a small smile on his face.

"Fine. I guess. I'm alive." Dean said.

"That's what matters." John nodded.

"Where were you last night?" Sam demanded.

"I had some things to take care of." John deflected cooly.

"Well, that's specific." Sam scoffed.

"Come on Sam." I pleaded.

"Did you go after the Demon?" Sam insisted.

"No." John replied.

"You know, why don't I believe you right now?" Sam shook his head and glanced to the floor. I shared a look with Dean. Sam was looking for a fight, and that might be exactly what he was going to get, which was why John's next words surprised us so much.

"Can we not fight? You know, half the time we're fighting, I don't know what we're fighting about. We're just butting heads. Sammy, I, I've made some mistakes. But I've always done the best I could. I just don't want to fight anymore, okay?" John sighed.

"Dad, are you alright?" Sam asked, suddenly worried.

"Yeah, yeah. Just a little tired. Hey, son, uh, would you mind gettin' me a cup of caffine?" John rubbed the back of his neck absently.

"Yeah, sure." Sam frowned. He left the room and John watched him go.

"You know, when you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen, I'd be, I'd be wrecked. And you, you'd come up to me and you, you'd put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd... You'd say 'It's okay, Dad'." He paused. "Dean, I'm sorry."

"What?" Dean blinked.

"You shouldn't have had to say that to me, I should have been saying that to you. You know, I put, I put too much on your shoulders, I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy, you took care of me. You did that, and you didn't complain, not once. I just want you to know that I am so proud of you." John admitted.

"This really you talking?" Dean asked cautiously.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's really me." John smiled.

"Why are you saying this stuff?" I asked.

John put a steady hand on each of our shoulders and I had to resist the urge to flinch away, and judging by Dean's expression, so had he.

"I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay?" He looked both of us in the eyes in turn.

"Yeah, dad, you know we will. You're scaring us." Dean chuckled nervously.

John whispered something in Dean's ear that left him staring in shock as John left the room.

"What did he say to you?" I demanded.

"He-he said we might have to kill Sammy. If he goes darkside." Dean choked.

* * *

10:41 AM. That was the time of death on the report.

Even though I had feared John for a good thirteen years of my life, his death still left a gaping hole in my chest.

We salted and burned his body the next day after Bobby and Reese picked us up from the hospital.

Reese clutched to my jacket and cried the whole time.

Even Dean cried. Something I hadn't seen him do for years.


	5. Chapter 5

**Still don't own SPN.**

**I'll establish Reese better, maybe tell the background story in a later chapter, and establish Leila's relationship with Bobby. Also, Ellen and Jo in this chapter!**

**Mentions of Abuse again, sorry.**

**Uh, quick question for y'all. Do you think I should stick with the canonical reveal of Gabriel, or have him reveal himself sooner? Say, after/during Mystery Spot? Leave a comment!**

* * *

_Everybody Loves A Clown (2.2)_

We'd been at Bobby's a week. Reese had calmed down a bit, stopped crying all the time, though to be honest, she was probably just in a haze. I pulled her out of school and started her on online courses as soon as we got back from the hospital, though she hadn't done any yet. I couldn't blame her though. Her grandfather _had _just died. Anyone should get a free pass to do nothing when family's gone.

Dean worked on his car from dawn to midnight every day. She was starting to look like a car again.

Sam was moping around a bit, helping Bobby organize his library or reading most of the time. Today however, he had decided to pester the Winchesters to 'see if they wanted to talk'. Reese had threatened to stick him full of darts if he asked one more time, and Dean had told him to fuck off. I was the last person left.

"Hey Leila." He said quietly, sitting down across the kitchen table from me.

I had sat myself there the first day and barely moved since. I drank away my pain, and Bobby and Reese had quietly put me to bed after I passed out everyday. So far, no one had tried to tell me to stop, so I didn't. I'd gone through two packs of cigarettes as well, and not spoken a word. I knew I should be there for my daughter, but I just couldn't bring myself to do anything.

"If you want to talk, about Dad, I'm here for you." He began.

"Don't, Sam. Just leave me be." My voice was hoarse, and cracked with emotion as I stared into my empty glass.

"Lei, this isn't just something you can ignore." He insisted.

"Sam, look, I'll talk to you some other time. Just, not with Reese around, please." I begged. I knew that if I started talking about John, absolutely everything I had to say would come spilling out, every word I had kept a secret would be pulled out, and Reese was nowhere near old enough to hear it at the tender age of nine.

"Fine," He sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall. It had broken months ago, and Reese and I were going to fix it together sometime. I'd promised. "Listen, I got a job from one of Dad's old phones. This woman named Ellen left a voice message four months ago, and Dad still had it saved, so we're gonna check it out. Do you wanna come with or stick here?"

"I'll stay here, maybe get some work done on my car, help Bobby do some research." I tried to be as vague as possible, as I knew I wouldn't be doing much.

"Sure." Sam smiled, obviously not believing me.

* * *

The next day I woke up at 6:30 and got dressed. For the first time in the whole week since John died, I remembered going to sleep in my bed, and man did it feel great.

"Morning mom." Reese yawned.

"Morning Reese." I replied, flipping pancakes on the griddle. Reese froze mid-step.

"You're up before noon, cooking, and you changed clothes?" She asked cautiously.

"Yep. Your old mom decided to get off her ass and do something." I grinned, handing her a plate of the fluffy pancakes. With only butter of course. Reese seemed to not share my penchant for strawberry or maple syrup.

"You're up early." Bobby commented as he came down the stairs and began shuffling around the study.

"Yeah, Sam convinced me it wasn't worth moping around any longer." I lied. Truthfully, I'd just gotten sick of waking up with a bad headache, though I had been taking sips out of my flask all morning.

"I don't think uncle Sammy's _that_ persuasive." Reese joked, digging into her plate.

"Maybe I decided to listen to the voice of reason for once. Ever think of that?" I raised an eyebrow at her challengingly.

"As if." She snorted.

"Yeah, well," I mumbled, taking a sip of a cup of coffee. "Hey Bobby, need any help with research?"

"Nothin' I can't handle." He grunted.

"Mom, can we go to the record store? I found an old record player in the attic." Reese asked.

"Sure," I ruffled her hair affectionately and went to bring the computer over. "But you gotta do some of your schoolwork."

"Aw come on!" She complained.

"You haven't done any of your schoolwork this entire week, I think that before we go do anything you need to do some work. Also, the record store doesn't open until ten and I need to make sure the player works." I explained, exchanging her empty plate for the laptop.

"Fine." She grumbled.

* * *

"Done!" Reese announced after three hours of clicking furiously on the computer.

"What's the grade?" I asked from across the table where I was putting the record player back together.

"B plus." She grinned.

"Good job kiddo," I nodded, putting the last screw back in. "Run up to the attic and grab some Zeppelin for me?"

"Yeah, no problem." She shrugged, closing the laptop and heading up the stairs.

My cell rang with the song "The Passenger". Sam's ringtone.

"Feathers McGee speaking." I chuckled, pressing the phone to my ear. It was a code we'd started using back when we still all went to school. If I answered with 'Feathers McGee' I was fine, if I answered with 'Ghostbuster' I was on a case, and if I answered with 'Doc Jekyll' I needed someone to come get me.

"Hey Leila, we got a case. Ellen said she wanted to talk to you, is that okay?" Sam asked, his voice a little muffled through the crappy ear speaker.

"Why not." I said.

"Hi Leila, I'm Ellen." A female voice drawled.

"Nice to meet you Ellen." I replied, cradling the phone under my chin and pressing a finger to my lips as Reese returned with Zeppelin IV.

"So, your daddy told me you were a Nephilim, that true?" She asked. I set the record on the turntable and flicked the power switch to 'on'.

"Yeah, I mean, as far as we can figure." I said, a little more comfortable with Ellen if John trusted her enough to tell her the biggest secret she had.

"Huh, never would've thought Angels were real of all things." She said.

"Well, neither would've Dean, but here we are." I laughed quietly.

"Alright, your brothers are gettin' antsy to leave, so I'll finish this up. Jo, Ash, and I wanted to let you know that we'd love to meet you sometime, and to let Bobby know that he's welcome at The Roadhouse any time." She said.

"I'll make sure he hears that," I grinned. "And thanks Ellen. It's great to sort-of meet you."

"You too Leila. Talk to you soon, alright? Don't be a stranger." I heard her hand the phone back to Sam.

"So we'll call when we finish this up, or if we need help." Sam said.

"If you get home by ten Saturday night, I'll actually cook somethin'." I offered.

"Sounds like a plan." Sam replied.

"See ya then."

"See ya." He hung up the phone.

* * *

"So, what's a good band to get some records of?" Reese asked as we entered the store.

"Well, I like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, y'know, the good stuff." I shrugged, already lost in the rock section.

"What was your first record?" She asked, thumbing through the AC/DC.

"Uh, my first record was Zeppelin III I think," I mumbled. "Dean gave it to me for our fifteenth birthday."

"Oh yeah! I saw that in the attic." She said.

"Bobby kept all those?" I asked. I would've expected him to have thrown them away by now.

"Yeah, I guess so. I mean, there was a bunch of records that looked like stuff you and Uncle Dean would listen to. And like two boxes of Uncle Sam's CD's." She smirked.

"Seriously? Even the CDs?" I laughed.

"Oh yeah." She nodded.

We spent two hours flipping through dusty LPs and talking about music, and as we were leaving the store with the few records we'd actually bought, it struck me that that was what normal parents do with their kids. They cracked jokes, took them shopping, and had fun. Not training and fighting for your life like how I'd been raised.

"You alright mom?" Reese asked.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, just, a little, uh, never mind." I shook my head.

"This was nice," She said. "Thanks mom."

"No problemo kiddo, we should hang out more than we do." I ruffled her hair affectionately as we walked up the steps of Bobby's porch.

I felt sick to my stomach, I hadn't even thought about what John had done to me and my brothers mentally. I'd just been stuck in the same train of thought of 'He hit us and cut us and burned us, but I can't help feeling sad he's gone.' and wondering _why on Earth_ I missed the man who had raised me to think that love and pain were the same thing. Freddy had been the one to get me out of my previous relationship with a guy who was hurting me, and then I'd fallen in love, and then John made me kill him because he wasn't entirely human, just like me. He taught me that there is love without pain, and then John took it away again.

"Hey Bobby, can you, can you watch Reese for a few hours? I need to go clear my head." I asked, scooping up my keys again as my voice cracked.

"Be back before it gets dark, and don't drive drunk." He said, giving me a sympathetic look. Everyone had been too damn understanding while I was locked in my mind. I was the only one who wasn't moving around and doing something and they _let me_. They let me mourn the man I had hated most, but been too afraid of to get away from.

* * *

I drove for hours, not knowing where, just knowing I had to _leave._ I couldn't be around that house any more. Staying there was like drilling a hole in my heart. There was too much regret when I was around Reese, and that killed me. It killed me to know that she was looking more and more like Freddy every day, and that scared me. I was scared that John would come back somehow and make me kill her. I was scared that something else would come and kill her. Dammit, I was scared of being alone. Sam and Dean had each other, they didn't mind me tagging along, but they didn't exactly need me to be with them. Bobby had his own entire little community. Reese however, she had me and her uncles and Bobby, and she was the one constant in my life ever since she was born. I sometimes got left behind on hunts, the boys going and taking care of it while I did something on my own, but Reese always followed me around unless I told her not to.

When I finally got out of the car, it was in the parking lot of a liquor store, and then a motel six hours later when my eyes were drifting shut.

* * *

I woke up the next morning and nearly had a panic attack because I'd forgotten that I wasn't at Bobby's. I quickly calmed down though, and my thoughts drifted to Bobby and Reese. They would be worried probably, but I had left my cellphone and everything behind. I hadn't wanted them to be suspicious, but now I didn't have a change of clothes, nor my favourite weapons that I always took inside.

The first thing I did was fill my flask. Then I went to a diner, ordered coffee and pancakes (with strawberry syrup of course), and ate in silence. It was strange to think that just twenty-four hours ago I'd been sitting across from my daughter, eating the same thing while she did her schoolwork. When I was done, I called Sam on a payphone.

"Who's this?" Sam answered sleepily.

"Sam, it's Feathers." I said, biting my lip.

"Hey Lei, what's up? Why are you in Idaho?" He asked. I could hear Dean complaining. Sam had woken him up.

"I ran, okay? I was scared and I ran." I admitted.

"What happened?"

"Sam, what if I'm like John? What if I raise Reese like John raised us?"

"Leila, you're nothing like dad, okay? You'd never do that stuff to Reese."

"How can you be sure?" I demanded.

"Because. You practically raised me and I turned out pretty alright." I could practically hear the smirk.

"Sam, I was a kid when I raised you. I wasn't the same person I am today. I just, I can't be at Bobby's right now. I need you to call Bobby and apologize for me, alright?" I fretted.

"Hey Lei, it's Dean." Dean said.

"Hi." I mumbled, suddenly very ashamed of what I'd done in the past twenty-four hours.

"Lei, you need to go back to Bobby's okay? Or you could go to the Roadhouse, but you gotta stay with somebody we trust. I don't want you on your own right now." He said.

"I'm not a child, Dean." I huffed.

"I'm not saying you are," He insisted. "I'm just saying you need someone to be there with you right now. It's been a tough week for all of us, especially you, and I don't want something to happen to you and have nobody there to help."

"De, I'll be fine." I protested.

"And I'm sure you will, just go stay with Ellen or Bobby." He hung up the phone.

* * *

A fifteen hour trip back in the direction I came just to get to the Roadhouse in Nebraska. It was better than Bobby's though, and Sam and Dean would chew me out if I didn't actually stay with someone.

I parked my grey '68 Pontiac GTO, slung a small bag over my shoulder, and went in. It was a relatively busy night, and it was quite loud, what with the music and the loud chatter. A guy with a mullet, wearing an un-buttoned sleeveless flannel shirt, was typing code on a computer faster than I ever could, and a blonde girl, who couldn't have been that much younger than Sam, was cleaning the bar. I walked up and sat down on a stool.

"Hey there, I'm Jo. Are you Leila?" The blonde girl asked.

"Oh, yeah, that'd be me." I blinked. I'd completely forgotten to call and ask Ellen if it was ok to stay, but Dean or Sam must've called for me.

"Your brothers stopped by a few hours ago, wanted to make sure it was alright for you to stay," She explained. "Though, this _is_ a truck stop, we've got rooms for rent."

"Sounds like them." I chuckled. Sam always worried about everything, and was cautious to never overstep his bounds.

"So, that's Ash over there, Ellen's playin' some pool with a few of the regulars, and uh, Bobby called. He said he'd be here in a few hours." She said softly.

I felt sick. I shouldn't have left. Dammit, I never should've left! Reese would want answers, and she was just too young.

"Need a drink?" She asked.

"Yeah," I cleared my throat. "Just a beer though."

"Here ya go." She plunked the cold bottle down in front of me.

"Thanks." I offered her a small smile that she returned before continuing the cleaning of the bar surface.

The door opened again, and I didn't need to look to tell it was Bobby and Reese. The heavy footsteps and violent hug from short arms was clue enough.

"Hey Reese." I said, ruffling her hair.

"Why didn't you come back?" She demanded, sounding much older than her nine years.

"I dunno," I sighed. "I was having a bad night."

She pursed her lips, but accepted the answer. She jumped onto the stool next to me and swung her short legs.

"Hey kiddo, what can I get you?" Jo asked good-naturedly.

"Can I have a rootbeer?" Reese asked earnestly.

"That okay with you?" Jo turned to me.

"Yeah, she can have a rootbeer float if she wants." I nodded.

"Can I?" Reese's eyes lit up.

"Sure thing kid." Jo chuckled.

"You alright Lei?" Bobby asked kindly, sitting down on the other side of me.

"I'll be fine." I insisted.

* * *

The next day, Sam and Dean came into the Roadhouse around nine in the morning. Ellen gave them some celebratory beers, and said something that I couldn't hear. I was playing Jenga with Reese in the far corner.

"Oh yeah, um, I've gotta... uh, uh, I've gotta go. Over there. Right now." I heard Sam say before picking up his beer and walking over to our table.

"Jo and Dean flirting?" I asked immediately.

"Oh yeah." Sam sighed, sitting down.

"Hiya Uncle Sam." Reese grinned.

"Hey kid." Sam said.

The back door opened and Ash walked through with his bizarre laptop and a manilla folder.

"Where you guys been? I've been waitin' for ya." He said.

"We were working a job, Ash. Clowns?" Sam prompted.

"Clowns? What the-" Ash cut off, spotting Reese.

"You got something for us, Ash?" I asked.

He sat down the, probably home made, laptop on the table next to the Jenga game.

"Did you find the demon?" Sam asked hopefully.

"It's nowhere around. At least, nowhere I can find. But if this fugly bastard raises his head, I'll know. I mean, I'm on it like Divine on dog dookie." Ash grinned.

"What do you mean?" Reese frowned.

"I mean, any of those signs or omens appear, anywhere in the world, my rig'll go off. Like a fire alarm," He said proudly. Dean gave him a funny look. "What's up, man?"

"Ash, where did you learn to do all this?" Sam asked.

"M.I.T. Before I got bounced for... fighting." Ash sighed wistfully.

"M.I.T.?" Reese asked.

"It's a school in Boston." Ash explained.

"Okay. Give us a call as soon as you know something?" Dean asked.

"Si, si, compadre." Ash said, already distracted by something on his screen.

* * *

Ellen offered to let us stay for a while, but Dean insisted he needed to get back to work on his car.

Back at Bobby's, Dean continued his work, and Sam tried to have anther heart-to-heart with him. Not two seconds after Sam disappeared into the basement, I heard loud crashing and ran out into the junkyard to see Dean hitting the Impala with a crowbar.

"Dean?" I asked tentitavely.

"I'm fine." He snapped.

"I'll go." I sighed, trudging back into the house.


End file.
